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THE ArtsEtc Independence Reading List is now eight years old!

The IndyList, as we like to call it, is a selection of 12 Barbadian books to make friends with over the coming year.

The list, which first appeared in 2011, is part of the Editors' ongoing "Mapping Our Literature" mission, which promotes awareness of and celebrates Barbadian books and their authors. Each year, we recommend new, classic, and noteworthy titles in fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children’s literature.

And we encourage you to discover and add your own!

You can also read more about Kellman's Tracing JaJa and 2018's Casa de las Américas Prize honourable mentions for Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba by Sharon Milagro Marshall and Canouan Suite & Other Pieces by Philip Nanton here.

Last updated May 5, 2018.

COLLECTED POEMS 1975-2015 by John Robert Lee represents one man’s spiritual journey meandering through thorny labyrinths of faith, “from inner city provinces to southern islands of Amerika” (“Challenger”). This journey began long before 1975: when a young Lee witnessed his father, Alleyne, relishing a dessert of fresh ripe mangoes on a Sunday afternoon and began to contemplate seriously his romance with the written word.

It is so captivating when a writer lifts off the stereotypical veneer of a tourist-dependent society as “paradise” and excavates the real lived experiences of the people. Shakirah Bourne does just that in her collection of short stories, In Time of Need. For those who reside in Barbados or those who have a good knowledge of Barbadian heritage, the opening words to the national anthem immediately come to mind when they hear Bourne’s title. “In plenty and in time of need when this fair land was young” is the beginning of an anthem that describes the struggle of a nation.